An opinion by Nate Blouin and Stephanie Pitcher, “Partisan gerrymandering divided Millcreek into 4 districts — what’s being done?” argues that the legislature’s recent redistricting effort divided up Millcreek unfairly through “extreme partisan gerrymandering.”
With all due respect to my hometown, Millcreek City itself is simply a cobbling together of what was left of unincorporated Salt Lake County between Holladay/Murray and SLC, and doesn’t exactly represent an organic community.
The newly created Senate District 14 actually brings together a people and community with common concerns and interest much more than Millcreek City does.
A Google Earth image of Utah Senate district 14.
I was raised in East Millcreek and worked at the family furniture business in Sugarhouse. Eventually, I established my own business in East Murray where I still work after 23 years.
While attending Olympus High, my friends and I were often engaged in friendly sports rivalries and other exchanges with our neighbors at Highland, Murray, Cottonwood and Skyline high schools. Many of us dated and married people from these neighborhoods. Our children have followed suit and many of us now have grandkids being raised in the community that makes up Senate District 14.
It’s hard to eliminate political and partisan bias when drawing up district maps. But when I take a morning run from my home in East Millcreek over to Sugarhouse Park, up and back across Parleys Canyon along the Bonneville Shoreline trail at the base of Mount Olympus overlooking Murray and Holladay, I wonder how there could be a Senate district drawn to better represent the community my neighbors and I know and love so well.
Dan Sorensen
Republican nominee for Senate District 14.